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Thursday, January 05, 2017

RV Pantry Solutions

Every move involves new organizational solutions.

We have much more storage in the motor home than we did in the trailer. Unfortunately, much of it is in the storage bays/basement. This isn't a problem when it's 70 degrees outside, it's a considerable problem in icy rain and snow. One does not want to stand outside for great lengths of time searching to find, for instance, one schoolbook. We have extra kitchen appliances, school books, winter gear - all stored in the bays.

I also store some of the "extra" food in a big tub in the basement and under various seats with built in storage. Weight is always an issue and I need to EAT DOWN the stuff in the basement. This week, before I made up a menu plan, we pulled all the food from under the seats and under the home out and inventoried.

In my defense, some of the things we store are specialty items not readily available at each location we visit (i.e. Nutritional Yeast, Agave Nectar, Rapadura, Wheat MT Prairie Gold...). However.....I'm not sure WHY we needed so many Ritz crackers or honey. I'm open for meals and uses for both. I THINK some of the crackers were bought with an eye to make wedding munchies.

We'll have Chicken Divan this week....and the honey goes quickly if I bake bread and make ice cream....the problem being I've not gotten brave enough to try to bake bread in the convection oven...and it's FAR TOO COLD to stand outside with ice and salt watching an ice cream maker!!!!

Now that I know what is there, I need to REMEMBER what is stored in the various pantry locations. I made a pantry page in my Bullet Journal. I listed each item and drew a little square to show how much of each item there is. As we take out an item, the item is "x" out. We have some big storage cans of items that it is nice to have if you are boondocking far from stores....hash browns, fruit I dried...Those cans are stored under our seats. I put a "\" in the square when those items are opened and "x" when they are empty.

This system will work well for a variety of storage needs....I first used it when I needed to keep track of what was in the bottom of a 21 foot chest freezer. LOL